One of the continued shortcomings of Android Wear is the lack of configurable canned response messages. If you can't talk to your wrist, it really limits what you can say. For a few months, WearResponses has offered an alternative for users of rooted devices with Xposed, but the v2.0 update is rolling out today and should work on all devices without root. How? Sorcery, I'd imagine.

Here's the full changelog for the pending v2.0 update.

Improvement! Lollipop (API 21) support

Improvement! Full Material Design for Lollipop devices

Improvement! Xposed usage removed

Improvement! ALL SMS applications supported with new implementation

Improvement! No longer only for rooted devices with new implementation

Improvement! New changelog view

Improvement! Wearable notifications now stack, and also clear on action

Feature! Sorting of responses

Feature! Fetch most used SMS in intro

Bugfix! Handle registering of receivers better, on-boot and off

Bugfix! Fix position of 'undid' message

Improvement! Add support for 4.3 devices (API 18)

The app comes with three free custom responses, but you can add as many as you want after upgrading via an in-app purchase. The changes to remove the root requirement apparently make the user experience a little clunky, but that's probably preferable to almost no one being able to use it in the event Xposed never works on Lollipop and later.

The changelog is dated today on the dev's site, but the Play Store hasn't updated yet. Check back in a bit and the change might have propagated through.

Comments

Brad

I wonder if this is worth it... Does it still show you your texts via hangouts? Then you switch to another app? Or....?

Justin

Most of these, like coffee, will block the notifications of the proper SMS app on your watch and sit over the top of it. You can block individual apps from sending notifications, and you have to unblock them manually if you happen to uninstall the apps later.

Using your phone, you should still be able to use your standard SMS app, and there shouldn't be any change in how your phone operates. This looks like it just intercepts and stands in for the notifications

Grayson

I had nothing but problems when I tried coffee. Text message notifications not showing up at all, double notifications, etc. Said screw it and uninstalled.

Francois Roy

Worst part is that you have to disable your SMS app to make sure you won't have duplicates.. Meaning you can't use Hangouts at all, or you'll lose ALL messages.. XD

jon

Without xposed this is only the implementation that is possible according to the developer

Brad

ha, blocks hangouts notifications so I can only respond to proper texts. Meh... uninstall.

michyprima

Cannot believe people would prefer this over wear messenger. Meh, I did everything wrong I guess.

jon

Pro version allows you the same functionality as wear messenger, plus more.

michyprima

It doesn't really look like that, honestly.
I read nowhere it has support for 3rd party keyboards (plus two integrated), or that you can read past messages, or gmail and hangouts support just to say some. Plus it is more expensive.

yankeesusa

Yea, if xposed is never updated for lollipop I will definitely miss it. Reason I haven't updated my g3 to lollipop yet.